


Stay Close To Me

by AsagiStilinski



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Skating, Alternate Universe - Yuri!!! on Ice Fusion, Competition, Fluff, Ice Skating, Kaiba Seto Has Issues, M/M, Rivalry, Skating, because skating still counts as dancing, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsagiStilinski/pseuds/AsagiStilinski
Summary: Seto is tired of winning silver medals, he wants nothing butgoldThe gold-medalist, on the other hand, wants nothing butSeto





	Stay Close To Me

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt Monday- "Dance"
> 
> Ice skating counts, don't tell me otherwise

He was always second place

No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he was _always_ second place

Once upon a time in a far distant past, he had been a champion

But now those gold medals stared at him from his bedroom mirror like a mockery and he couldn't stand to look at them anymore, surrounded by gleaming silver

He could hardly stand it

For four years he had collected gold medals like there was nothing to it, always slaughtering his competition effortlessly

He was a prodigy, they had said

A figure skating mastermind that the ice hadn't seen in ages- if ever

And then _he_ came along

Sure, Seto had known of him for many years, but he had never really paid much attention to him

With a three year age gap between them, their competition had always been just out of eachother's reach

When Seto was thirteen, _he_ was ten, and thus ineligible to compete in the junior competitions

When Seto turned fifteen and qualified for seniors, his competition hadn't even begun in juniors yet

He rode the high for five years, until the junior competitor he had never paid much mind to turned fifteen and entered his first senior competition

He swept the gold out from under Seto's fingers with so much grace and effortlessness that Seto had been blindsided

He had credited that win to Seto himself being unprepared, telling himself each night that he had underestimated his competition and would never be so naive again

But the next year when Seto came back for his sixth year at the Grand Prix Finals, he beat his personal best by ten points

There was no way, he knew, that his competition could beat that

He was wrong

His competition had defeated him by five

Seto worked himself so hard on the third year to find a way back to gold that he spun out during the end of his free skate and walked away with a sprained ankle and a lecture that it was by only a stroke of luck that he hadn't caused a full break

His competition gave him a shoutout wile he accepted gold, and said that he looked forward to seeing Seto on the ice again the following year

The fourth year Seto had pushed himself so hard that he was shaking the morning before the competition, but he kept going anyway

His coach banned him from practice for a full two weeks after the competition, once she realized how hard he had worked, often sneaking in extra hours at the rink wile she was sleeping, sneaking off to the ballet studio when he should have been eating, he had been close to blacking out after his free program but he had felt confident that he would make the top spot on the podium this year

His personal best was defeated once again....

But his competition rose to the challenge and defeated him by two points

Seto had never been so crushed

Ever since _he_ had entered the competition, Seto could only win gold if they weren't placed together

And both being from Japan, that was relatively hard to avoid

He always won Nationals and the Grand Prix, and the only gold Seto could ever hope to sweep in the mean time were the qualifying international competitions that they weren't paired up in

This year Seto had gotten off lucky and hadn't been paired with him at either Skate America, or the NHK

His competitor had claimed victory at the Rostlecom and Cup China

They had entered the Grand Prix on almost equal footing this year, each with two golds, his competition only having had the advantage at Nationals, wich felt like eons ago

But still.....

_Still_ Seto found himself placing second

Still, after he had tried so hard, he couldn't get any higher than silver!

When it came to the short programs they were nearly matched, as per usual, Seto topped technique, but _his_ emotions and performance quality gave him the edge

What could Seto expect?

He knew that he couldn't properly skate to _Agape_ , he had told Kisara that when she first proposed it!

_"You always have to leave your audience surprised Seto, and what's more surprising than the Ice King skating to a song about unconditional love?"_

Yet it hadn't been enough to surpass his opponent's rendition of _Eros_

That hadn't killed him though

They had been separated by such a small margin that even an extra two or three points could have brought Seto out on top in the free program, but...

But even he had to admit that his opponent's performance of _Stay Close To Me_ had been nearly perfect

He wasn't the kind of snob that insisted there was no such thing as a perfect routine- quite the opposite, he believed it was possible and strived to one day acheive it

The first perfect score....

Yet, although the routine wasn't perfect, even Seto had to admit that it was damn near it

In comparison, _Allegro Appasionato_ had looked like child's play

Once again, he had failed

He could barely even stand having the silver medal around his neck as he gazed up at the podium where _he_ stood

On top of the world, surrounded by applause, and covered in gold

That had been hours ago, and Seto should be resting, or at the very least preparing for the banquet where he was expected to show up tommorrow, pretend to have anything other than a rotten time, and "mingle" with fellow skaters, coaches, and hard-asses from the industry

He couldn't stand going to another banquet without gold

He couldn't stand showing his face again wearing only silver

So instead he was _here_

He had always been good at sneaking into places, and that was no different now that he was a champion skater

He hadn't had a hard time breaking into the rink at the exhibit hall and getting some lights turned on

He didn't even need or want music, he just ... wanted to be on the ice

His passion for skating had always driven him, ever since he first started as a child

Even after his parents died, even after he was sent to the orphanage, the entire reason he was adopted was because his "father" had seen a star quality in him and believed he could use Seto's skills to gain even more fame and fortune than he already had

He had been right, up until he'd died when Seto was fifteen, just before going into his senior debut

That was still widely considered to be the best performance of his career, even if it hadn't necessarily been the highest scoring

His passion though, had been at it's peak

He was still passionate about it, even after all this time, even after all the losses, there was nothing in the entire universe that could compare to the feeling of being on the ice

"I thought I'd find you here,"

Except maybe.. just maybe... _one_ thing

_Atem Amyr...._

The man who made his blood boil in more ways than one

"Don't you have success to flaunt?" Seto bit as he glided around the rink

"Don't you?" Atem smirked back, sitting down on the bottom bleacher behind him

"What, is your memory that bad? _You_ won gold, not me,"

"You don't have to win gold to be successfull," Atem frowned, starting to pull on his skates

"You and I both know that isn't true,"

"And you and I both know that you're the only one who thinks that," Atem frowned deeply

Not that Seto seemed to care

Regardless, he finished getting his skates on with ease and stepped over to the ice, only for Seto to skid to a sudden stop in front of the door

"Really? Are you fucking kidding me?"

"What? So you can break into an ice rink in the middle of the night but I can't?"

"Why do you have to keep following me!? Isn't it enough for you that you're constantly defeating me? Do you have to rub it in my face everytime I turn around too!?"

"Is that what you think this is?" Atem frowned as he stepped onto the ice

"Seto, do you know what my theme for this season has been?"

"Desire," Seto replied instantly, starting to glide around in slow, meaningless loops around the ice once again

"Eros represents sexual desire, Stay Close To Me represents longing for someone to be with you for as long as you exist,"

"Very good, you clearly pay attention,"

It was mocking

Atem was mocking him, Seto knew it

"Fuck you," he snapped in response, starting to hasten his steps from a slow, lazy glide, to the familiar run of a routine

"Do you know why I chose desire for my theme?" Atem called after him, his hands shifting to hold behind his back as he started skating backwards towards Seto

Fucking show-off

"I assumed your coach chose your theme,"

"No I chose it myself, did _your_ coach choose _your_ theme?"

Yes, she had

She always did

For this season, Kisara had chosen "passion" as his theme

He couldn't understand why, _Agape_ was one of the least passionate things he had ever skated to, and although his second peice literally had "passion" in the title, he still found it relatively bland

He may have been at his best technically this season, but his emotions- or lack thereof- had made it clear that he wasn't happy with his routines, and had ultimately ruined his scores

"Your theme was passion, wasn't it? It's so similar to mine.... Eros and Agape, two kinds of love, Stay Close To Me and Allegro Appassionato, the feeling of longing and the feeling of great desire, so similar,"

"Great desire" Atem had said, but Seto hadn't felt that- he had felt only emptiness

Appassionato hadn't been meant to inspire emptiness ofcourse, Kisara had been convinced that Seto would grow to love the music and come to perform with the amount of passion that she swore was bled into the peice

He hadn't

He didn't

He didn't care

Appassionato had meant nothing to him

But Stay Close To Me had meant _everything_ to Atem, just the way he spoke about it, with reverence, as if it were a peice of his very soul...

How could Seto have ever competed with that?

He had tried choosing his own music and theme before but they always only came out angry

That had worked once, maybe twice, but Kisara was right

The audience had to stay surprised in order for them to care about you and everyone only expected Seto to react with coldness or anger

His most well loved routine had been set to a song he asked someone to compose for him- _Finally Free_

It had spoken of releif and joy and freedom, he had bloomed on the ice to that song, finally free from the hellscape that his adoptive father had constantly drowned him in

But that had only been once and the year after, Atem had won gold at the junior GPF, stealing Seto's spotlight for the first but definitely not last time

"Do you have a point?" he finally bit, jumping into a double axel, just because he could, just because he needed to let off some steam

"I asked you if you knew why I chose 'desire' as my theme," Atem repeated, jumping a triple axel just because he was a no-good fucking show-off

"No, I don't," Seto grumbled back, jumping a quadruple axel out of sheer anger

He over-rotated but stuck the landing

"Because of you!" Atem shouted as he suddenly sped up and completed a _perfect_ quad axel

Seto wanted to slit his throat with his skate

... Or maybe just bite him and leave a big bruise where everyone could see it

It wasn't exactly a surprise to him that he was attracted to his opponent, he had known that for over a year now, but it didn't mean he was about to humiliate himself doing anything about it

"The first time I saw you skate I was only ten years old, and I've spent the last thirteen years trying to climb the ladder to be just like you," he explained, launching into an upright spin

He looked like everyone's expectation of a figure skater then, the way he spun around the ice in a blur

It made Seto feel jealous, and he started to do an I spin just for the sake of it

Competing, maybe

"I've been chasing you all this time, wanting to be with you, wanting to be like _The Dragon Of Japan_ , to attack the ice with so much passion that people can feel heat from it, as though you're breathing fire with every performance, that's how you got the name isn't it?"

Yes, that was how he had gotten the nickname

Atem had blossomed onto the ice as _The Fairy Of Egypt_ , a title that had been bestowed upon him the moment he hit the ice

The way he moved in soft gliding motions, as if he wasn't even touching the ground, like a fairy fluttering in the air, the softness and litheness of his figure, his youth and beauty, and when people started learning he was originally born in Egypt, well...

The name had sprung to life all on it's own

"It is," is what Seto ultimately ended up responding with

But that wasn't enough

"You've ... been chasing me, you said?"

All of a sudden, it was as though there was a pause in the world, as if the earth had stopped spinning for a moment, and Seto, for his credit, certainly had

He had come to a stop in his skating, leaving Atem to dance small circles around him, hands still behind his back, effortless gliding, as if he were born on the ice

Or born to _be_ on the ice

"Since the moment I saw you," he grinned proudly

"I wanted to be like you,"

"And now you've surpassed me- time and time again, so you can stop," Seto noted, taking a few slides back on the ice himself, letting himself drift in and out of his step sequence and watching with annoyance and.. curiosity... as Atem began to follow him

"Is that what you want me to do? Stop?"

"Yes,"

A pause- that had been a lie

"No, I don't want you to stop until I've beaten you,"

"Good, because as long as you're here, so too shall I be," Atem smiled peacefully

"I chose 'desire', Seto, because I desire to be like you, but also because I desire to be _with_ you," he added a beat later

This was enough

This was enough to take Seto fully by surprise and bring him to a stop in the middle of the ice, as though a cold wind had suddenly slammed into him, he could feel the breathlesness and confusion and the slight sting of that confession shuddering through his bones

"Why? Why would you want to be with me when I've never done anything but bite at you and show you contempt?"

"Because you changed my world!"

To punctuate that, he did another quadruple axel, and now Seto _knew_ he was just showing off

"You changed my world, my life, before you, I was a dancer, I wanted to be a ballerina like my mother had been, Egypt's only Prima Ballerina Assoluta, I wanted to be like her... but then I saw you and I changed my mind, because you showed me the beauty of the ice! Until you, I had only been skating at the suggestion of my ballet teacher, to improve my balance and fluidity of my movements, but because of you, I saw that ice skating is a dance all it's own, one that you can improve upon and perfect and change more season after season, one that's not programmed to make you a player of a story, one that makes _you_ the story, you gave me that, how could I ever want anything else but to be with you?"

"And that's enough for you?" he asked skeptically, earning a laugh from Atem as he twirled and spun and breifly moved into a Biellmann spin

"Ofcourse not! I want to be with you because I know that you want to be with me too,"

He dropped his foot, skated closer, so that he was standing right in front of Seto now, still, for the first moment since he joined the silver-medalist on the ice, and extending his hand

"I love you, and you love me too, I know that, and that makes me want to chase you for as long as eternity will allow,"

"You think I love you? What fucked up notion of love is that?"

He took a step back, but it was only a single step, and Atem didn't move, his hand still extended in invitation

"I know that you love me, because you're at your peak when I'm there with you, because when you look at me, you push yourself the hardest you ever have, I push you to your limits and you push me to mine, I chase you, yes, but you chase me too,"

He paused, beginning to skate again, in small, delicate circles, slow and soft, his hand still extended towards Seto, never wavering, not even for a moment

"I can see it, the look in your eyes when you see me watching you perform, the way you force your body past it's limits, it's the same thing I do when I see you watching me, the same look that's in my eyes, that desire to catch one another, that passion, _that_ is love, maybe it's not roses and puppy kisses the way most people perceive love to be, but it _is_ love, be honest with yourself, if I retired after this season, you wouldn't know what to do with yourself, would you?"

No....

No, he wouldn't

He had spent the last five years chasing Atem

Not gold, _Atem_

It didn't matter if Seto won every gold medal for the next ten years, if Atem wasn't competing on the same ice then what was the point?

Victory would only taste sweet again if he looked down and saw Atem on the silver podium beside him

Was that it?

Was that really love?

The sensation of "I don't want to do this unless I'm doing it with you beside me", was that what love was?

Part of him already knew the answer, and that was the part that allowed him to finally take Atem's hand

The gold-medalist lit up like a Christmas tree, his free hand waving in some vague gesture Seto didn't recognize as music started playing in the distance, filling up the otherwise silent rink like a concert hall

It was amazing, and Seto wondered breifly how he had done it

"Say that you're right," Seto proposed as he allowed Atem to guide him

He had never skated with anyone else before, he knew that Atem had on a few occasions, so in this case, he would let Atem lead him through the dance

"Say that you're right, then what?"

"Then... we keep going, we'll retire the same year, so it'll be a fair fight, otherwise if we push ourselves to the limit of what our bodies can handle, I'll have three extra years on you to collect gold when you're not around, but I wouldn't want to, it's not the same without you, it's pointless without you, but together.... together we'll keep fighting our hardest, we'll keep making records only to break them the next season, we'll skate until our names are engraved in the ice for the rest of eternity, and then we'll find something else to chase eachother with,"

Seto had to admit, as Atem pulled him around the rink, and spun in his arms, and twirled and clung and made the dance their own, that that plan _did_ sound appealing

"And for now?" he questioned

"For now.... for now we go back to Japan and prepare for next season, and we commit that no matter what, we'll surpass how we are now, and we'll do everything we can to catch eachother,"

Seto huffed, twirling in Atem's arms before stopping abruptly and cupping his face, staring down at his overly excited expression

"I'd say you already caught me,"

Atem's grin was still firmly in place, warm and confident, knowing and teasing, it made Seto's heart soar, and he suddenly found himself forgetting that he had ever been upset to begin with

All that mattered was Atem and the ice

It was a ... new... experience to have, that something other than skating could get him out of such a mood, but he was happy for it all the same

"Good, then there's one more thing I want from you," Atem said softly, leaning up and giving him a soft, gentle kiss

"I want you to join me in my exhibition skate,"

"What? Why?"

"Because it's been my dream for thirteen years to skate with you and I don't want to wait any longer, because I want to change my program to something different- to a duet- anyway, because I want to show the entire world our love, to dance with you, with everyone watching us," he explained softly, starting to skate once again, gliding across the ice back and forth

"As a skater, everything on the ice must be loved, you must love the music, the costumes, the competition, the exhaustion, even the parts you hate, you have to love, or otherwise you'd never do it, skating is a type of love in and of it's self, and I want to show that to the entire world, but I can't do it alone, I can't do it without the most passionate skater I've ever met,"

Logically, Seto really should probably say no

They'd have no time to practice, except for tommorrow afternoon and however long they can get away with having the ice to themselves here, and Seto wasn't the type to give unpolished performances, but ...

But dancing here with Atem on the ice, now, just the two of them, he had never felt more polished and prepared

"Alright, where do we start?"

~+~

When they announce their themes for next season, they do so together

They share the announcement ceremony

Atem announces that his theme is "wholeness", and Seto, much to Kisara's delight, takes the audience by surprise when he boldly and loudly announces the word his theme is based around

Happiness


End file.
